Tag Archives: sexuality

Character-Driven Sex

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Whew! I just finished Book 2 of my Harwell Heirs series on Friday December 13th and sent it to my editor at Ellora’s Cave. While I was editing and polishing that manuscript (working title: Lord Petersham’s Contract), I wrote 50,000 words of Book 3 in the series (working title: Miss Danby’s Condition) for November’s National Novel Writing Month. This intensive period of writing solidified a belief I’ve had about writing erotica from day one: sex is driven by the characters and not by the author. Continue reading →

Snippet Sunday: The General’s Wife: Sam and Pat

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I think this might be my last General’s Wife snippet for Snippet Sunday* for a while. The book is now with a copyeditor. (Thanks to P.T. Wyant for catching that typo last week! I hate typos! Go nuts copyeditor!) I’m hoping to release it by this November (cross fingers), so maybe I’ll do some more snippet teasers just before then.

In an earlier post, I had alluded to Pat and Sam being “very close buddies” which, of course, is a euphemism. Wait – what? They like each other? Aren’t they the heroes for our heroine Clara? Let’s just say I like to mix it up a bit with my writing and I have a soft spot for the bisexual beta hero. Continue reading →

Victorian Sex: My Secret Life (Part 2)

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Who was Walter?

In order to answer this question, we need to establish if there is indeed a question here to answer.

Uh, what?

Well, is My Secret Life an autobiography or a work of fiction? If it is a work of fiction, then trying to ascertain who Walter was is moot. If it is autobiographical, then someone (or perhaps several someones) wrote it, and, the question then becomes, who? Continue reading →

Victorian Sex: My Secret Life (Part 1)

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This post is not about my secret life, it’s about the infamous tome published c. 1890, authored by a man known only as Walter. The book, My Secret Life, was written as a memoir and is often considered a work of Victorian erotica, which it most certainly is not. It is unabashedly an impressive work of pornography. Unlike a more famous erotic memoir, John Cleland‘s Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure, aka, Fanny Hill which has a plot and a resolution (actually a happy ending), My Secret Life is more a series of vignettes. It does have the elements of fiction: There are running characters; there is development of Walter’s psyche; there is a progression of time. But it lacks any plot. Weighing in between 790 and 1173 pages (depending on the version; this one is cited), My Secret Life is the epitome of the rambling sexual memoir, a prime example of that particular style of Victorian porn. Continue reading →